`Life Is So Good'

NAMES AND FACES

At 98, He Learned To Read

At 102, He's An Author

Sitting at a long, wooden desk in a classroom at the Lincoln Instructional Center, George Dawson copies this sentence, the original having been written by his teacher, Carl Henry, on the same page.

Dawson's hand is slow and steady, and his penmanship is careful, spidery. All things considered, he's doing remarkably well: Dawson turns 102 years old today. He began learning how to read only four years ago.

And, even more remarkably, on Feb. 2, Random House will publish his first book, Life Is So Good. The size of the first printing, 100,000 copies, hints at hopes for the bestseller list.

This is all a bit unexpected for a man who, at age 98, just wanted to learn to read his Bible.

Dawson's late pursuit of education and his remarkable life - laying railroad tracks in east Texas before the Great Depression, riding bulls, raising seven children, outliving several wives, witnessing the horrors of racism firsthand - sound like the stuff of bestsellers.

Dawson may be on the cusp of being America's hot new author, but he is a proud man first. He still makes his own biscuits and corn bread, offers a firm handshake and walks without help. Don't offer any or you'll insult him, Henry says.

A doff of his hat reveals a full head of gray hair, neatly parted. He always wears a hat because ``I don't like the cold wind blowing through my hair.''

Richard Glaubman, an elementary schoolteacher and Dawson's co-author, remembers well their first encounter.

``I had some misconceptions about age, so I didn't expect this very healthy man with this strong voice. He was doing just fine. He had a memory as good as anybody's could be, and he was so at peace with himself and what he was doing.''

Dawson was born in a log cabin in Marshall in east Texas, was the oldest child and had to help support his family. He didn't have time to go to school. His grandmother taught him slave songs, which he can still sing in a clear, strong voice if asked. He built levees, played baseball, and rambled from Canada to Mexico to St. Louis to New Orleans.

Eventually, he settled down and worked for 20 years at Oak Farms Dairy, where he once had a shot at a promotion. But he couldn't write his name, and the job went to a man who could.

``Writing my name - that was one of the grandest things I learned,'' he says now, his eyes shining, his smile widening. ``I like to talk about what the people did for me and what I did for myself. I didn't know how to write my name. I wrote X's. That was my name for 100 years, that X. That was all I had.''

Children are Dawson's main concern. Ask him what you will, but probably sooner than later he will steer the conversation back to children.

``I want 'em to remember this old man here,'' he said, tapping his book's cover. ``He lived and died and done everything he could to help the little ones.''

All the attention pleases Dawson, but not so much that he doesn't want to get back into Henry's classroom. He smiles shyly, allows that he doesn't know any other 102-year-old first-time authors, and says the book is ``fine.''

His teacher, Henry, calls him an excellent student. ``He's in the fifth-grade reading book; when he goes home, he reads the Bible.''

Dawson doesn't think about how much longer he has: waste of time, he says.

``My life been a good life all my life. I have rambled from place to place. I've enjoyed my life,'' he said. ``A good life is worth living.''